Town as stage

Monday and Tuesday 6–7 August / Days 8 and 9
180 books given away in nine days.

Tuesday was Frances’s last day as an Olympic Ambassador. I gave her a book and she told me a story about how she’d designed a jacket with a map of Portland and a bunny on the back for her London2012 volunteer interview, but was told she’d have to wear this uniform instead. And how she met the mayor of Portland, OR and got into a correspondence with him for twelve months.

Cheap / open / curious

On Sunday, when I changed the message to “Free Books,” I worried about diminishing the work. That “free” would signal “cheap.” It makes me uncomfortable to even show a photograph of the sign here. Of course lots of people are interested in free stuff and I could tell that some who approached me were primarily attracted to the idea of a bargain—a motivation at odds with the traditional art world model (rare = expensive = good).

And then I thought—so what? By giving the work a form that’s instantly recognizable (the printed book), and putting it in the street, I’ve opened it up. Not accessible like on Amazon (whoever wants a book can find it) but available and exposed to a diverse, chance-determined audience. I’ve shifted the barrier of entry from price (can I afford it) to engagement (who is this guy, what does he want). Anyone open to a 15-second diversion gains the potential, later, with the book, for some kind of discovery, big or small. Standing there on the esplanade, I witness people eyeing me, ignoring me, glancing over, looking away, smiling, stopping, nudging, whispering and pointing. For the most part they aren’t on the lookout for art—unlike some of the visitors to the bakery, who have come to see the books. With the town as my stage, standing in the street with my work, I’m coming face to face with key questions—who recognizes art? who wants it? who reads? whose eyes are open? who is curious?

Mass-transfer bursts and the superhumps in cataclysmic variables

Speaking of curiosity. On Sunday I was coming off of Town Bridge on the bicycle, headed to Hope Square. As I passed the King’s Arms pub the door swings open and Geoffrey bursts out with his arms up and a loud “PAAUL!!” Amazingly, he had spotted me from inside the tavern and said he wanted to give me a copy of his paper explaining dynamical instability. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I’d already found it online and linked to it here (Geoffrey doesn’t own a computer). We arranged a meeting time for Monday.

And so, on the day that Curiosity landed on Mars, I sat with Geoffrey in Hope Square and gave him a copy of Weymouths #8, about the ruins of an ancient Roman temple overlooking the sea in Weymouth. And he gave me his paper about exploding stars, rolled up in a toilet paper tube. The full title is Mass-transfer bursts and the superhumps in cataclysmic variables by Geoffrey T. Bath, published by the Royal Astronomical Society in 2004.

One Comment

zoe came back from ny with a book from rand-mcnally called :during the exhibition the gallery will be closed.
started reading it[she took it home yesterday], and always ran your project through my mind to give me some purchase on the ideas this art critic has.
i think you would like to read it, we can circulate it for that matter and talk.

rupture is another term i ran in to. lecture by g.harman on speculative realism,there he tries to develop the idea of aesthetics as first philosophy
because art is the rupture between a thing [in the widest sense of the word] and it’s qualities.
i see that in your project,you are breaking open yourself and the ‘bookworld ‘
which includes so many things we never think about .with love